According to Nintendo's latest investor report, the canine collection sold 1.71m units since launch, an impressive total considering Nintendo has sold 3.6m 3DS consoles worldwide. By our maths, that's nearly 50% of 3DS owners picking up a pet to go with their new machine, though it has a long way to go to beat the original Nintendogs sales of over 23m units worldwide.

People may fault the game for being a tad shallow feature-wise, but there are so many areas in which Nintendo's attention to detail exceed their competitors' in the virtual pet market, making their furry critters the absolute most life-like out there.